There was in fact one roll call vote Wednesday night: “Authorizing the use of the Capitol Grounds for the District of Columbia Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run.”

Well thank fucking christ we put off a talk by the President of the United States on the single most important topic facing the nation right now so that we could make sure that the Special Olympics torchrun can go on. That must be something they had to pass immediately, right? So important it couldn’t wait. It has to be, like this weekend, right?

Authorizes the use of the Capitol grounds for the 26th Annual District of Columbia Special Olympics Law Enforcement Torch Run on September 30, 2011.

Hm. That, uh, doesn’t seem all that important. Perhaps there was something more that prevented the House from having the leader of the free world in to talk about the nation’s struggling economy and what to do about it…

The House did do a little more business than give its nod to the torch run (which will begin from the west terrace of the Capitol and continue along the grounds). Members discussed trade and unemployment and gave hearty congratulations to the girls all-stars team from North Carolina, which has made the Little League World Series. The House met at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, and adjourned at 9:36 p.m.

… in the midst of the worst global downturn since the Depression, Norway’s economy grew last year by just under 3 percent. The government enjoys a budget surplus of 11 percent and its ledger is entirely free of debt.

[…] Banks represent just 2 percent of the economy and tight public oversight over their lending practices have kept Norwegian banks from taking on the risk that brought down their Icelandic counterparts. But they certainly have not closed their doors to borrowers.

[…] To Ms. Halvorsen, the finance minister, even the underside of the Norwegian dream looks pretty good compared to the economic nightmares elsewhere.

“As a socialist, I have always said that the market can’t regulate itself,” she said. “But even I was surprised how strong the failure was.”

for future reference, while we wait with baitedbated breath for the Republicans to launch their upcoming campaign to ‘rebrand’ Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”

A commercial satellite owned by a U.S. company was destroyed in a collision with a defunct Russian military satellite in what NASA said was the first such accident in orbit, raising new concerns about the dangers of space debris.

and they helpfully include this image with the article:

Getty Images

A computer-generated artists impression released by the European Space Agency depicts an approximation of 12,000 objects in orbit around the Earth.

NEW concerns? There is that much crap floating around in our atmosphere and now that there has been a major crash of two satellites, now we have NEW concerns?

Industry officials say Iridium has identified the Russian craft as a Cosmos series satellite launched in 1993, weighing more than a ton and including an onboard nuclear reactor.

“As a black, Roman Catholic conservative from Washington D.C. and Maryland, I know how to lose elections,” said Michael S. Steele today in Virginia. His audience, a gathering of House Republicans, knows all too well, too. But now, he said, as the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, “I’m in the business of winning elections.”

He somehow thinks that joining the RNC as its leader puts him in the business of winning elections? Haven’t they gotten HOUSED in the past couple of major election cycles? Like, beaten so badly people are wondering if the Republicans can come back?

How is that the business of winning elections?

Then again, swinging bullshit like this, maybe Steele is in the right place:

“Now my mom was a sharecropper’s daughter, with a fifth grade education,” he said. Referring to Democrats, he went on, “If my mom knew how to balance the budget, I’m sure the rest of the folks out here on the other side should know how to do that as well.”

Because any idiot can tell you the last president to balance a budget was Clinton and that the two largest periods EVER in debt growth and deficit spending occurred during the reign of George W. Bush and his hero, Ronnie Reagan, who also left the country floundering toward a recession thanks to spending money like drunken monkeys and cutting revenues at the same time.